A warning against using Lloyds TSB as your business bank

I’ll be honest, it’s not just Lloyds TSB that are bad. When I started up, my company was a body for me to freelance through, and I didn’t need much from a bank. No overdraft, no additional facilities. Nearly three years ago, I approached them to ask for a business overdraft, having decided to take the business full time, and they said “No”. Lloyds TSB came to the rescue and provided the vital lifeline that got me on my way.

It didn’t last. I had a bank manager I could call, on his mobile if needed, and ask questions of. All great, until he left and I was sent a letter saying I now didn’t have a bank manager, but a relationship manger who was based 200 miles away in Leeds, and who I couldn’t just meet with and discuss the business as and when needed. That seemed just about OK to me, until just before Christmas last year when it all got a bit too much to deal with.

I’m sure any of you with Lloyds, and some of you with other banks, have seen these Chip and Pin card readers that are being sent out to customers on the premise of increased security. You put your card in and enter your PIN along with various other pieces of information to put in theoretically unique codes, which, depending on the bank, let you perform various tasks – logging in, paying people, and so on. Well I got sent one just before Christmas, and when I did, I dutifully put the details into the online banking platform provided to me by Lloyds TSB. It promptly locked me out. The code which I entered was somehow invalid, despite being the same as what was on my little card reader device. First bad experience. I build web applications. That’s just shoddy.

A short, but what should be unnecessary, call to telephone banking sorted that and I was on my way. Or so I thought. I have staff to pay, and I have freelancers too. So whenever I want to pay one, each and every time, I have to enter my PIN number to sign in, then enter my PIN again, the account number and amount of the payment in order to get a code to enter on the site to make a payment. I’m told this is to enable Faster Payments. I personally bank with First Direct and Faster Payments works just fine without this ridiculous mechanism that just makes my life a chore. It’s security by obscurity, and doesn’t prevent fraud because people can still swipe my card if I’m in an unscrupulous shop or restaurant for instance.

So I tweeted. And to my surprise Lloyds TSB responded! I sent a private message and a few minutes later I was talking to someone on the Lloyds TSB Twitter team over the phone. The only part of the entire business it seems that wants to try and help. I’ve been informed that by applying for Bulk Payments, which requires me to apply for a credit limit, I can avoid all this fuss. Shame I can’t avoid the fuss caused by not being able to get anyone to actually make Bulk Payments available on my account. It is apparently supposed to take a couple of days, and I gave a bit of leeway over Christmas and New Year. 3 weeks in though I’d expect to have either got it on my account, or to have heard something. So I tweeted again saying nothing had been done, and I was duly informed that my relationship manager would contact me asap. Well he’s supposed to have contacted me three times now, and I’ve not heard a word from him. So I now have a bank that doesn’t care about what its users have to say, or even about servicing them in any kind of way.

That’s where we are to date. I’ll keep you posted on anything else that happens, but I think I’m off to HSBC with my business banking. If you have a business, you’ll at some point ask your bank for something or other, however small it may be. I’d strongly urge you to avoid Lloyds TSB like the plague. They just don’t care. About anything or anyone.

Update 19/01/2011: Well I heard from my relationship manager today. Finally. Apparently my application hasn’t even been processed in any way shape or form. I’m now being asked to send previous two years of accounts to them, despite them being MY BANK and having full access to all of my finances for this entire period. By Fax. Which I don’t have. Because I’m not 90 years old.

And apparently, Bulk Payments doesn’t actually alleviate the need for the card reader. It just means you only need to enter it once per set of transactions made through it. And the application is processed like a business loan. And lets me go over my predefined overdraft limit. This feels like more of a problem than it sets out to resolve. So here’s to some more waiting once I’ve sent my details over and here’s to HSBC who are about to become my new business bank.

I’d like to hear about anyone else’s experiences with these kinds of things. I’m sure I can’t be the only one!

Just wanted to say, as an Information Security specialist, this card reader thing is completely rubbish. Its massively over complicated for a small business, the three attempts and you’re locked out is stupidly low (how much chance is some hacker going to have of guessing the correct 8 digit number? Come on!) – the generation of the number is time dependant and it gives you no indication of when that timer is going to tick over to the next code. So you enter your pin, it gives you a code and before you can enter it on the website (and I type fast) it ticks over to the next time point – no indication and suddenly you’ve used one of your three lives

I can agree with a 2 factor authentication mechanism as an upgrade from the 1.5 factor they used to use, but a simple token with the option of an app for iPhone/BB/Android and a computer app (ala CryptoCard) would have significantly upgraded their security without the need for all this grief…

I used to bank with HSBC until they started charging me excessively for what is a very simple business bank account. I feel that the charges may be preferable to being locked out quite regularly however!

Santander seem pretty good for making payments – they text you a one time code when you first set up a new payee and then you just have to log in normally to make the payments. It seems like a sensible balance between security and ease of use.

On the downside they’re useless at everything else. I had real trouble getting a copy of my business bank statement to support a mortgage application and it eventually turned out that they’d blocked all outgoing post on my account because a letter had been returned undelivered. It took 3 months for them to tell me this and then two attempts to sort it out!

Craig, thanks for that. I completely agree. HSBC are offering 2 years free banking to switch, which is what’s tempting me across given the hassle I’ve had. Apart from that, I’m more inclined to pay more for good quality service anyway.

The whole system seems designed to me to offload responsibility from the Bank – and it’s not just Lloyds introducing these – to the customer. It’s time consuming and painful. as a small business I don’t have time to do their job of securing my account for them. Since they introduced it I have started using their telephone banking more as that is bizarrely less onerous than finding the card reader gadget – assuming it’s in the same place as me anyway – then having to enter information TWICE. I’ve had enough of it already. But a few lone voices on the web aren’t going to get them to reverse this stupid decision unfortunately…

Anna, you’re absolutely right. I just needed to get my anger out. I’m just about to write another one though. This new change means you can’t log in to online banking if you report your card as having been used for fraudulent activity, despite logging in with your online banking ID…

Tom and Anna, you sound as if you feel exactly as I (and presumably many more customers)feel about this system. I have been struggling since 5th January 2011 to sort this out and have now been told I must have a faulty card reader so have to start all over again – on 9th February. I’ve forwarded Tom’s email to my Senior Commercial Manager, who says he has passed it up to “Head Office” but I feel we should all find a way of making contact with the new in-coming Chief Executive, Antonio Horta-Osorio since it seems to me, from previous experience, the only way to get change is from the top. Any ideas?

Hi Kelbrick, I took the easy route and switched to HSBC. It took 30 minutes with the local bank manager and by the time I got back to the office 10 minutes away, I was already set up for online banking. So far the experience has been exemplary.

I have chosen Lloyds to business bank with only because they didn’t have the card reader (“calculator”). I had to activate it today and was shocked when I had to key my pin number, the account I want to transfer money to, the amount I want to transfer, then the 8 digit pin I had to key to my online banking… Do they think that I have so much free time that I can waste it on this?!? My next stop: Google… Bank without the “calculator”

I’m sorry to hear about your problems too. It seems it’s not just me and of that I’m kind of glad – it shows that I’m not alone in thinking this is a complete waste of time. If only Lloyds saw the problem too. I know HSBC don’t have the pin device, as that’s who I’ve moved my banking to, but I’ve also heard that Northern Bank are quite good. They don’t have any branches so that may be a problem for you. If not, give them a shout. Their website doesn’t mention any details of banking costs which is what put me off.

I too have had problems with LTSB’s card reader. It hampers the running of my business and twice access to my account has been “suspended”. I don’t understand why the money in my LTSB personal account is in any way less secure than the money in my business account. I don’t ned a card reader for my personal account so why do I need one for my business dealings? It’s still the same kind of money.

I’ve just wasted yet another hour on the phone to Lloyds TSB. We set up a commercial account with them around 2 months ago…and I’m still not able to use online banking!

There are so many flaws in their system –

– Firstly they have a ‘known issue’ with their online application process. The issue is something to do with the Enter key being used to finalise an application…which causes the application to fail and delivers a message saying that they can’t process it because an application has already been received.

I moaned at them about this as it caused huge delay from the outset… And they tell me that the issue remains but only with certain browsers (I used Firefox or Chrome, both very standard)… For such a large organisation to leave that problem and not even warn users about it is ridiculous. The best they can do is wait for your stressed telephone call and tell you to make sure you use the mouse instead of the key (I swear I used the mouse anyway, but…. apparently I didn’t). And then some of them will even start talking as though they understand the technical issue in the web development and try to make out it’s all absolutely perfect and not a technical issue at all, but rather the customer (me) being too dumb to use the right browser or know psychically that a key pressing issue exists.

– When calling to talk to them they require a security number. So I asked to reset mine to one I’d remember. I tried to do this on 2 occasions and was passed to the automated service to enter my chosen number. On both occasions the call disconnected before I was transferred to the automated service. Which brings me on to –

– If you call them without a security number, they require you to go through a security check. This sounds fine except that a standard security question is “What year did you open your PERSONAL account with us?” , and since I opened my personal TSB account when I was a child (I’m in my 40’s now) how on earth can I remember the exact year…So I fail security EVERY TIME. And to make that worse, the operator is then locked out of the system so I have to call back to try again. I’ve explained to them how stupid this is and that it would save everyone time if they could try again without hanging up, and they repeat in a robotic manner “It is for your security”. But if I can call back and try again, how is that more secure? And anyway…I own the company and I can’t get into it…so if any fraudster can get in, they’ve done well!!! I told the Lloyds phone bank robot this, but she failed to see the funny side of it.

– Anyway…. I finally got over the technical problems and got an online application done. The downside is that I applied online nearly 3 weeks ago…and today I am still waiting to receive everything I need to login. My desk is covered in letters from them, card, card reader…I have everything except the user ID which still hasn’t arrived. So I called them and the best they can do is get it to me within another 4 working days….If it reaches me this time!

3 Weeks to set up an online account is crazy. I have a personal online account with Santander which was up and running pretty much immediately.

– So as it stands today…Unless I go to the branch (Which isn’t an option at this time for me as my local yocal branch shuts at a ridiculous time) I can’t pay myself, my staff, or my contractors….and if this continues it could destroy my business.

All in all this has been the worst experience of banking I’ve ever had… and having read this blog and the replies I fully expect the experience to get worse as it sounds like getting logged in to internet banking will be difficult even WITH all the required bits and pieces to hand.

Talking to people at Lloyds over the phone is useless. Some of them are at least sympathetic to these issues, but unable to help…And some of them are barely human, and will even argue that they have no important issues and that my complaints are unfounded.

I’ve no idea where the Lloyds business manager assigned to us is … I have her mobile number but I don’t think she actually receives the calls, or she can’t be bothered, because since the day we set the account up she has been beyond reach.

I imagine that if someone at a very high level in Lloyds knew about this terrible service they might not be very happy…. But those people are obviously unreachable and too busy spending our money on yachts. That said… if there was a way to contact the right person and get this page exposed, perhaps something would be done.

Today I finally got into our online account (though only after a phone call, since the number from the card reader failed first time). Praise the lord! ( I thought ).

Unfortunately, SHOCKINGLY, I then discover that Lloyds TSB online commercial banking has ZERO facilities for making international payments. That’s right… you CANNOT MAKE INTERNATIONAL PAYMENTS online. And since a large % of our workforce is overseas, that means that the online banking is utterly useless to us.

The only good thing to come from this is that A) it’s given us no option but to switch to a better bank, thus saving future headaches, and B) For once I got some really helpful (as much as possible) and sympathetic service from someone at the call centre. Obviously he couldn’t do much but it’s good to know that Lloyds have at least some good people on their staff.

No international payments from a commercial account….The mind boggles at why that decision was made. It’s like going back to the old TSB days when they were commonly referred to as the ‘Toytown bank’.

Derek, you’ve done exactly the same as I’ve done. Thanks for two tremendously useful comments. I was amazed that this blog post got found and visited so much, but it can’t be coincidence. I just hope someone sees this and does something real about it. It’s clearly not just me. I’ve gone to HSBC now, and the online system is good, and does what it says on the tin. It’s by no means beautiful, but I can live with that.

I also bank with LloydsTSB and find the service fantastic from my Commercial Manager, my local branch and the online banking team. I have a system called LloydsLink which allows me to send international payments from my office using the banks online platform. I have also heard they are introducing a new system at the end of this month call ‘Arena’ which allows you to forward buy/sell currency and avoids the need for using the banks spot rate in the branch in theory this will improve my margins by 2%!

Depending on the size of your business and your international requirements I would suggest speaking to your local manager and asking him about LloydsLink it might also we worth asking depending on the volume of your overseas transactions if you could speak to the Local International Manager to discuss payment options and the benefits of ‘Arena’.

As I say I have banked with Lloyds for a few years and they have supported my through a difficult trading period and I can only say how impressed I am with them and would not move bank.

Banked with lloyds for 7 years,dont have overdraft,always in credit and asked for an company credit card.
Waited 4 weeks , having rang them twice and promised a phone call in repsonse each time.
Eventually someone looked at the application and said i dont meet criteria!

This bank is crap,run by nerds in a call centre.
I am now changing to a proper bank.

I totally agree I’ve been waiting now for months for my “relationship manager” to contact me. Funnily enough I was contact straight away when they thought it was new business!!!! I’m the same as you I’m going Lloyds tsb are a bag of shit!!!!!

I setup a business 1 year ago and took out a loan with Lloyds – the only reason I’m still with them (it’s insured with the EFG).
I’ve met my “business accounts manager” twice. Once with the loan proposal. Once for the loan acceptance. I have not heard a thing since. Never answers the phone, never returns calls. Furthermore the extent to which Lloyds setup my business account was to A: take my name B: bill me for charges that hadn’t been mentioned. And that was IT, and I mean IT. No Internet banking was setup, no telephone banking, not even access to my own accounts. In order to pay employees and bills their suggestion was to go into branch, withdrawl money, WALK TO THE RECEIVING BANK and pay it in to whoevers account!
We managed to get one Internet banking account setup after about 3 months. In order to use it we had to login to the Lloyds BUSINESS account section using my girlfriends PERSONAL banking details. Now remember I said I set the account up a year ago? – last week I finally managed to get my own business internet banking working. That’s a YEAR it has taken.

Over the past year I have had 7 fraudulent transactions on my Lloyds account. As an aside, I have been with Halifax for about 26-28 years with no problems. 6 months after Lloyds took over Halifax, I had 4 fraudulent transactions on my personal Halifax account. In fact, it’s such a common occurance that I’ve had to setup a nominal code in my accounts software to deal with fraud. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s certainly not through a lack of security on my part. I’ve worked as a network admin for years and do web development in my spare time. My business card is used with about 5 regular suppliers and that’s it.

Lloyds is a joke. I wouldn’t recommend that ANYONE use them for ANYTHING.

This may not be related to business banking but the way LloydsTSB treats its disabled customers is horrific. If you have any type of disability then stay well away from LloydsTSB…unless you have lots of money in which case they bend over backwards to help you.

Security????? Use the Barclays identity calculator to make Lloyds TSB transfer…. Guess what? it works! lol
Lloyds TSB Support small businesses? The biggest joke out there! As soon as they put their charges through, if the charges take you overdrawn, they will block your card. Obviously then no more access to internet banking to see how much you need to put thing right and extra daily charges for being overdrawn!
The relation manager is another joke. I received a letter with the header: Overdraft limit: £0
Balance:£140.39 in credit
The second sentence of the letter says: If you have not paid money into your account within the next seven days to bring it back into credit, we will make a formal demand for payment of the whole debt!
I think in this case the word relation applies to the step mother from hell!

I have had the unfortunate pleasure of needing to speak to Lloyds TSB and I can honestly say they were the most patronising people that I have spoken to and to think they have my money! 24 mins holding on the telphone banking line, a question about my overdraft limits on each account, none that I had asked for so I didn’t know I had any, meant that they locked me out of my account and I would need to call back and go through the security questions again, after waiting 24 mins, really! Spoke to a supervisor who was so condescending and spoke to me like I didn’t have a clue and all thsi for me just wanting to pay a £5.oo bill but beacuse they have so many security measures meant I missed their telephone call which allows me to make this simple transaction. You then have to enter all the details again for it to activate again. This time I checked the number as it had Stars in it to obsure the number, so I retyped it in to make sure that it was the correct one and they now have locked all my numbers down for 7 days for security reasons!!! So I now can not make a simple payment of such a small ridiculous amout. I also have an account with First Direct, it is a brilliant bank and they make everything so easy on their internet banking system, I am now closing my accounts with Lloyds TSB, as soon as I can access my own money that is!

I asked Lloyd’s about future overdraft planning for the business. They arranged for a representative to ring me. After 20 minutes on the phone with him I asked him: “So what you are saying is that you are the wrong person to be speaking to?”.

“Yes” he admitted. So who do I need to speak to? Colmore Row up in Birmingham. He then quoted the name of a business relationship manager. How can someone I have never heard of be a relationship manager?
I tried to get through to Lloyds Birmingham, but there was a long queue on a they were “extremely busy”. I left it for another day. I got through to a telephone operator in Birmingham and he said – I’ll just have to “put you through security”. This was an automated phone system – I never returned from it, there was no option to return to a human.
I went back into the branch in Slough and said I’ve totally failed to speak to anyone about business banking at Lloyds. They took my cheque book and went upstairs with it. Some time later a manager said are you ok sir? I said they have taken my cheque book and I’ve had enough and want to go. He found the woman with my cheque book and she said “It must be due to the activity on the account”.
The criteria for Lloyds to lend is proportionate to how inefficient my business is. If I had 2000 transactions for 20p they would be very impressed. The woman then at my request put this in writing and signed it. Within 45 minutes a copy of this signed reason was in the post to Vince Cable.
“Vince this is why the banks are not lending”.
I also wrote to the chairman of Lloyds.
A telephone operator rang me about the letter and was very sorry. Before going into the matter she just wanted to “put me through security”.

I refused. If they want to meet me face to face in the Slough branch then ok.

On Thursday of next week I have a meeting with Metro Bank who have opened a branch in Reading.

Any bank which forces its customers to use automated telephone systems when they don’t want them will need a warning:

Well you’ll be happy to note that lloyds TSB are still trying to be the worst bank for business. We’ve run a business account with them impeccably for three years. Thought it was about time to obtain an overdraft for 3k so I applied on line… nothing… and then again… nothing in fact four times in as many months, but it would appear silence is golden for this shower. I eventually spoke to a business relationship manager called Jazz… It didn’t fill me with confidence, yes they where aware but didn’t think it was feasible! I informed them of our current huge batch of forward orders and POs would he like to see copies. The answer was not really as they didn’t think food catering was a good risk! Which is a strange response as we’re not a food catering company! Basically they are not interested in working with any type of business, the branches are part time and the staff are poorly trained. Luckily our Financial Director had the sense to contact the HSBC… immediately spoke to a very helpful business manager, with a positive result and a 10k overdraft within days after they actually had the interest to view the said POs. Lloyds have all the information and history but just can’t be bothered. This is irresponsible non lending at its worst.

I’ll say it because most folks are thinking it.
SHUT THE MOANING UP FOR GODS SAKE, chill out and move on, sh*t happens and we will have to put up with it because English people love to moan but when it comes to everyone pulling together to do something about it 99% can’t be arsed.
So go make yourself a cup of tea sit down and put the soaps on, you’ll feel much better

I’ve approved this comment in the interests of openness. You mentioned “doing something about it”. You may not be aware of this, but often, publicising issues with a large corporate is the fastest and most effective way of instigating change. By highlighting the flaws in their approach, I’m hopefully helping to either warn people away if they’re still like that now, or for the bank themselves to change their processes.

One way or another, you’ve arrived at this site and this article somehow, presumably via a search on one of the major search engines. Which other people do too.

I applied for a credit card, the start of December 2014. Two weeks later, chased it up. Told, sorry we haven’t received it, your safety settings must be to high on your computer, try on a mobile device instead. Odd that, because the search footprint had shown up on my (impeccable) credit file. So, like an idiot, I reapplied, only for the website to glitch again, (Lloyds aren’t aware their website is crap).
Success, I had been accepted, or so I thought. The card came through a week later, I tried to activate it online, no joy. Phoned customer services, 30 minutes into the covo after going round and round in circles, the fraud team had very nicely cancelled the card 24 hours after my successful application but still decided to sent the card to me, complete with pin, account number etc. Nobody, bothered to email me, text me phone me about this decision! When I did get a call from customer complaints 3 day later, bog standard, inept response, there was fraudulent information on the form, plus, both my mobile and landline were incorrect, (I must of been having an incredibly dumb day) yet, some bright spark thought, hey, lets still post the card out to this ‘fraudulent customers’ address, speechless!!
They still had the nerve to ask me to apply in person, at my local branch so they could vet me. I’ve worked in retail/customer service for 20 years and I can say, hand on heart say, LLoyds are the lowest of the low. What gives them the right to wreck a honest persons credit report, yet not divulge ‘why’ to me? Taking this all the way to the top of the ivory towers and beyond!